“LOOK AT THAT ASS”

We pulled into the drive-in to see Magik Mike, a movie about male strippers. Heather, my fiancé, had recently fallen in love with this movie. This was her fourth viewing of this fine film. I had already seen it and had no real interest in seeing it a second time. I just enjoyed being at the drive- in. Its was a spiritual place for me. It was how I communed with nature.

 I was very ritualistic about the whole thing. First, I parked the minivan, with its ass facing the screen, then, I opened the trunk, and sprayed myself down with insect repellent. Once we were all set up I rushed to the concession stand, which seemed to be run by fourteen year olds. The whole place seemed to be run by fourteen year olds. I liked that. It made the place feel lawless. I also liked that the food had been sitting under the heat lamp for an eternity. I liked that I had to eat my fries without ketchup because the ketchup bottles were surrounded by an impenetrable swarm of gnats. It was rugged. It added to the whole back-to-nature feel.

 I brought my snack back to the minivan. Heather and our friend Lila were lying on the mattress I had put in the back of the minivan (it was my way of making it a “makeshift RV”). The girls were drinking wine and smoking weed out of one hitter. They had their own snacks that they had bought at Trader Joes, which I thought of as sacrilegious.

My buddy Gorcoff was with us as well. He was skeptical about the movie. Gorcoff only liked movies with Clint Eastwood, or movies that reminded him of Clint Eastwood. And to be fair, a movie with Clint Eastwood stripping would be amazing. But this one was good too. Gorcoff had smoked a little weed and that helped him get into the film.

“This is actually pretty good,” he kept saying. “It’s emotionally stirring.”

Throughout the movie, Gorcoff and I kept thinking we were seeing shooting stars. “It’s meteor shower,” I said. Then we realized that it was just bugs getting lit up by the projector.

“This is bullshit,” Gorcoff said. “I want to see real shooting stars.”

The girls weren’t as into the stars.

“Fuck yeah, look at that piece of ass!” Heather kept yelling at the men dancing on the screen.

It was as if we were at an actual strip club.

Lila didn’t get into the movies as much. “I don’t like that guy’s hair cut!” she said.

“Don’t be such a hipster,” Heather said to her. “What do you want some skinny dork with a scruffy hair and a mustache up there. Ef that, look at that ass. Channing Tatum is fucking HOT!”

The next movie was Step It Up 3D. This was a strange choice for a second feature. It was a movie for pre-teens. Would the people wanting to see it wait through a movie about strippers? Would the Magik Mike crowd be into watching Step It Up 3D? Usually the kid’s movie is the first to be played during a double feature. Needless to say there were not many cars left when Step It Up 3D was playing. We stuck around though. Heather was so drunk everything seemed like porn. “WOOHOOO! LOOK AT THAT ASS!” she kept yelling.

Gorcoff and I were not as into it. We wandered around the parking lot and continued to look for shooting stars. We saw a few. They might have just been bugs flying past the projectors light, but, at that point we didn’t care.